PRITHVI DATTA CHANDRA SHOBHI writes from Oakland, California: Now that the University of Mangalore has put the fate of U.R. Anantha Murthy‘s novel Samskara on the backburner, at least for the current academic year, here is a question: Why is Samskara in the Hindi syllabus of the University?

Samskara is an outstanding novel, I teach it all the time, and I hope everybody reads it. But my first quibble isn’t about the merits of the novel but about its choice. This is a Kannada novel, and one would assume that in a University located in the Kannada speaking regions, students would be able to read it in the original. Or in English, thanks to an outstanding translation by A.K. Ramanujan.

The interests of the students would have been better served by reading a Hindi author. Srilal Shukla, for instance. Hindi literature is well served by so many great writers. Why not introduce them? Why a work of translation, even if it is a great novel?

Here is my point. Would the Board of Studies have considered the Hindi translations of D.H. Lawrence or William Faulkner or even Thakazhi Shivashankara Pillai?

So, Mangalore University Hindi Teachers’ Association should have its ire directed against the Hindi BOS. That they won’t do. Why? It consists mainly of Mangalore University Hindi lecturers. In any case, the debate should have been about what their students should be reading and learning inside their classroom.

Second, I also believe that the controversy has arisen because of how our college professors teach novels inside the classroom. I kid you not when I write this. But most teachers read every single line of the novel and explain it. This is how teachers can kill time by teaching one or two novels per semester. Students too don’t read anything before the examination and certainly come totally unprepared to discuss any text in the classroom. You see, there are no
‘practicals’ in a language class and so students can just get by without doing any work.

When I teach Samskara, I spend anywhere between 3-6 hours on the novel. My students would have read it and we discuss the issues. And yes, that includes the the relationship of Praneshacharya and Chandri. Sure, my gender (male) and the fact that I teach in an American University makes a difference. But I have some understanding of the
objections raised here.

I am reminded of my mother’s comments when she had to teach Shabarashankaravilasa or Bharateshavaibhava in her Kannada literature classes. She was embarrassed but she had to take these moments in her stride and keep the focus on what the students needed to learn.

Ask any woman Kannada professor who has taught Kannada kavyas. The use of sringara (erotic) rasa by a Kannada poet often meant an explicit description of the female figure, the sexual exploits of the hero, and so on and so forth. If she had to discuss how the erotic enters the text and poetic imagination, which would have been an essential component of teaching any Kannada kavya, then she would have had go through the ‘offensive’ verses.

I am tempted to be blunt and demand that Mangalore University’s Hindi teachers get over their reservations. But what I will say though is that they need to rethink their pedagogical methods. They ought to focus on the issues and ideas (including the explicit descriptions) instead of worrying about how to read these offensive portions.

Third, let us talk a little about these offensive references (to breasts), vulgarity and explicit sexual descriptions themselves. What is the context? Among other things, Samskara makes two important claims: first, only sexual contact (across caste lines) can break caste taboos and second, a Shudra woman (Chandri, in this instance) represents a vital race with tremendous energy and earthly sense of life.

While the Madhva community has always been quite offended by its unflattering portrayal in the novel, I think URA’s radical insights have to do with legitimizing and institutionalizing inter-caste (sexual) relationships, marital or otherwise. The Praneshacharya-Chandri relationship has to be looked at primarily from this societal imperative.

So if we are not debating with URA on his suggestion on how we can go beyond a hierarchical caste system (that only sexual contact can break caste taboos), then I don’t know what else are we going to discuss in our classrooms with our youngsters.

If Mangalore University’s Hindi teachers aren’t raising these questions in their classrooms, if all they find in Samskara are these references to or descriptions of sexual encounters, and if their worry is merely how to teach such episodes, then I think they should find another line of work.

The issues that Samskara raises are some of the great questions of our time and regardless of our opinion, we must raise them and hold vigorous discussions in our classroom. I don’t care if a professor were to defend the caste system or say URA is wrong in his description of Brahmin women or Madhva community. That is perfectly reasonable. But what is unacceptable is the refusal to discuss these issues with 19- or 20-year-old young men and women in a language and literature class. That would be a disservice to the students, as well as a great under-estimation of their maturity and capabilities.

What offends me is the puritanism or madivantike (as we call it in Kannada) that is on display here. It is same mentality that finds fault with Kuvempu‘s Malegalali Madumagalu and countless other great works.

What offends me is that we pick faltu fights over the real ones we ought to be concerned about. And this fight is as faltu as it gets.

15 comments

Certainly there were better books/novels in translation in Hindi. It is not the the quality of the work that the Board has considered, there may be some extraneous considerations too, for many in Indian universities know how text books are prescribed, sometimes creating unnecessary controversies. Whether it is Madhwa/Smartha/others rift that is depicted in the novel or the caste hierarchy is brought about in the novel,it is debtable. Not all teachers read line by line, some look and analyze novels/sorks from many angles. When we were students Shivarama Karanta’s Chiguridakanasu was a non-detailed text . Vishavriksha of Bankimchandra Chatterjee’s (Tr. B Venkatachar) was detailed text.
In prescribing texts the concerned teaching community and the interests of the students should also be borne in mind.

Samskaara is perhaps one of the most complex novels (SL Bhyrappa claimed it as artificial and unIndian!) representing the existential quandaries of a traditionalist (and much more…). The quabble to remove URA’s book (and maybe URA himself if BJP comes to power!) who has become the first among the priorities for the right wingers (whingers?) in Karnataka. Karnataka is at the threshold of having a full fledged BJP government and it is one of the many salvos against left wing intellectuals. The hindi lecturers are definitely not in the minority.

As per your contention that why should the hindi translation be made as a text, my sincere question back is why not? May be URA did some lobbying for it and why not? Everybody is entitled to lobby in our democratic set up. Inspite of lobbying and hobnobbing which URA has discussed with me in person, Samskaara, if translated to the merit it deserves, deserves to be made text in literature courses all over the world.

I have not read the Hindi version to judge if it does justice to the original. In all probability it does. And literature..(good literature, I mean) like music, knows no language …barriers. When all of us learn Hindi as the national language in true patriotic spirit, why should true literature students miss out on literary offerings of other languages. It is good for them to get the widest exposure. However, I do agree that some “essence” of the original is usually lost in translations. This too is a subject for literature students to discuss …and they cannot do it, unless they get a taste of translations.
I have already pointed out that teachers need to be properly equipped to handle new texts. Not everyone is creative enough.

Right wingers are whingers!! So, what are left wingers – left whiners? It is unfortunately both right and left wingers who do what they seem right when they come to power. As it goes in “the da vinci code”, History (and text books) are written (and selected) by winners.

There is a more basic problem. As “Not A Witty Nick” says, teachers have reservations(?) teaching about reproductive systems in biology class. My biology teacher conveniently skipped the chapter saying she would teach that the next eyar and of course never visited that the next year. And, I studied in one of the best schools in Mysore at that time. Pleaseeeee…….

Seriosuly though PDCS, do you think even 10% of teachers in our universities are as committed and passionate as you are (your writing makes me believe, you are)? I am sure you know the answer ebtter than I do…so why the surprise?

this post by shobhi mastaara has got to be one of the best posts on churumuri and am pretty sure is going to go down as one of the best analyses on the issue in particular and as a seminal work that brought the shallowness of pedagogy in public domain.

about the issue itself, URA himself in samskaara mentions the dilemma of a brahmaNa who studies kaaLidaasa and yet is subjected to the kaDivaanas of everyday life in the novel. it is sort of ironical that university professors are in a knot on the subject. it is eerie that URA seems to have anticipated the problem.

i am not an arts student. so i always romanticized that folks in the arts classes learnt the meta principles of perception and articulation. i was devasted when i read some folks proudly tom tom their master’s degree in vouyerism -did praneshachaar fuck chandri? who cares?, does it matter? how did he do it? just like you would do it, sire. even if i were ignore all the meta ideas in the novel, and were to just concentrate on the sexual content, for me the question is, can you describe how you did it last night with as much clarity and, more importantly, did you, to begin with, experience that moment with as much sensitivity? are you alive enough for that?

i dont remember the name of the work, but in one of URA’s stories, there is immense tension between the hero and the heroine, and then, on an impulse, they fuck. to paraphrase, aata aakeyannu sambhogisibiTTa full stop. that is all URA said and yet it was all so graphic in my mind, the hot torrid animalistic sex that must have ensued, given the preceding tension. i am sure no school taught him to write like that and there is no school that can teach me to write like that.

that to me is top notch writing.
if there are people still writing that and phrases like ‘ee sante saakaagide'(kaikini), ‘makkaLidaare kaNe mane tumba’ (vaidehi) then it is despite the system not because of it. that much i am convinced. i am convinced our conment based education cannot produce such geniuses. we can produce arundhatis and nehrus by the paisa but no karantajja will ever emerge out of this system.

that brings me to the loss of geniuses who captured ideas like sama-bhoga and garbha-dhaaraNa. yes, garbha-dhaaraNa, think about the word, how do you come up with words like that? which school teaches you to coin phrases like that?

we as a civilization seem to have lost the ability to produce the geniuses of the calibre of a shusruta, a paNiNi, a bhaskara(have you seen his proof for ‘pythogoras theorem’?), a maadhva(mathematician), a sankara, a vidyaranya, a ajaatashatru, a basava, a akka, the unknown guy who wrote naasadiya. now all we have is regurgitators, perhaps really smart ones, but still regurgitators- people with ability to experience life first hand and articulate, we have lost. theory spinners we have p-many.

I was only trying to find the root cause of this apparent nonsensical issue at this point in time. Yes Left wingers are perhaps worse than Right whingers when it comes to whining. However, the issue is not that. The issue is that this is a super-ploy of the communally dangerous academic politics of the Mangalore region. We have seen enough of the powerful establishment (right OR left) when it comes to snubbing, smothering and suffocating free speech and expression. By the way, it is definitely an exercise of finger pointing and why not?

I am pretty sure that at least some Mangalore university Hindi major students are Kannadigas. To read literature written in their own language translated into an alien language would be good for them since they can understand the novel better in their mother tongue and then switch back to the alien language.
Also, in terms of volume, Samkaara fits the role of a non-detailed text ideally (Tejaswi’s works would also do, however Bhyrappa does not generally know to condense his thoughts ;-) ).

In Samskaara, evethough Brahmins in general feel some heat, URA puts the Smartha community in a better position when compared to the Madhva dumb wits. More than anything else for me, this should be the sole reason to read the novel, since it exposes who is better!